https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/pickin-your-banjo-picks-banjo
Picks are important, so this is a must-see lesson to help you be a better picker!
Discuss the Banjo lesson: Pickin' Your Banjo Picks
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Hi there! Everyone seems to say to use a plastic thumb pick. Is there a reason for that? I bought a set of picks which included a metal thumb pick. Just wondering if I need to get a plastic one or not. Loving the site by the way!
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Hi Malcolm, Just from personal experience I found metal thumb picks a little too ridged and bright sounding. Never really found it comfortable to wear. I did a lot of experimenting before settling with a clear plastic pick. Everyone is different I am sure you will get lot’s of differing views here.
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It’s mostly personal preference. I never cared for all metal thumb picks, but some people swear by them.
In the end, you want something comfortable to wear for hours and that gives you the right tone.
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Great question…I think it’s mainly tone preference. People use metal because it can fit better and not get loose when you’re playing for long periods of time. That’s one reason BlueChip picks are so popular…it has a metal band but the pick part is a synthetic tortoise.
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Thanks for all the info in this lesson…the bit about twisting the index and middle finger picks to line up with the angle of the hand for the picks to meet parallel with the strings was an eye-opener for me. I’d never heard this before (or maybe never noticed it before!), so it was exciting news for me.
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@xmark The twisting was a game changer for me, too. My fingers are all goofed up because of football and my index finger almost takes a full 90 degree turn to hit the strings correctly.
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Thank you so much for the tip about offsetting finger picks by 20%. I have been learning to play on and off for a couple of years and never knew this…it’s a game changer!
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Small Correction at 04:40. Finger-pick stamping of 0.018 = Eighteen-thousandths of an inch; not eighteen hundredths of an inch.
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Wow. Turning the picks just a little bit made a night and day difference. Thanks.
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I’ve been very frustrated with my banjo (a starter level banjo) sounding “dead” every now and then. It’ s not all the time and I couldn’t find any particular area on the strings that would make it better or worse. I can’t wait to get to it and check out the pick rotation. My guess is that’s what’s happening. Thanks, Banjo Ben!
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This was a great lesson and just what I needed!!
I am taking lessons from a local instructor and they never covered how to wear picks. Turning them to align with the strings made my picking so much brighter. Duh, why didn’t I think of that already?
I can’t wait to watch more of these videos!!
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Another person here who wore the finger picks straight ! twisted em’ and well there ya go…
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Can anyone share how they go about adjusting the blade of the pick? I get how to adjust the bands to fit the contour of your fingers. I also know, as was shared in the lesson, that the blade should follow the contour of your finger. I just don’t know how to make the blade of the pick follow the contour of your finger.
Any help would be appreciated!
Mike
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I used a set of needle nosed pliers on mine. Be very gentle, and if you leave any scuff marks, smooth them out with some steel wool or very fine sand paper (like 400-600 grit.) You want that string contact surface to be nice and smooth.
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I just bought a pair of sammy shelor picks and am contouring them and noticed that to hit the strings square it sits way crooked on my finger and the opening in the band is all the way over to the edge of my fingernail is this an issue?
I haven’t had that problem with my Sammies. I’d be curious to see your picking hand and how it compares to Ben’s in this video.
https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/banjo-hand-positions-banjo/video/pick-hand-anchor-techniques
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Actually, I think that is how both @BanjoBen and I like to wear fingerpicks… it doesn’t need to be perfectly square to get good tone out of them- a little bit of an angle is fine, but it is normal for the picks to need to be crooked relative to your finger to get a good amount of squareness.
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Ok thanks I have them striking the string square now and they are working good, I will be checking my hand position out again though.
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